Methadone treatment Doctors lose approval

Bottle of Methadone Treatment: Doctors lose their license and are under indictment
Again and again, doctors treat the treatment of heroin-dependent patients too lightly and then lose their approval or end up in court. For example, a doctor from Bonn is said to have failed to treat his patients as part of drug replacement therapy and lost his license to practice medicine. The public prosecutor's office in Oldenburg investigates another doctor from the Wesermarsch because he failed to comply with the legal requirements for substitution treatment in the treatment of drug addicts.

For example, the 64-year-old doctor from the Wesermarsch, according to Frauke Wilken, spokeswoman for the public prosecutor's office in Oldenburg, has for many years supplied 36 drug addicts with prescriptions for the replacement drugs methadone and polamidone. Therefore, the public prosecutor in the district court Oldenburg brought charges against the general practitioner for professional unauthorized prescription of narcotics in more than 3,500 cases.

Public prosecutor Oldenburg investigates against general practitioners
The physician is accused of having prescribed the first doses of the replacement drugs without adequate examination of the patients on the basis of oral patient information alone. Even at the first prescription, the physician had neglected his medical duty, although an overdose can be fatal, so the allegations of the prosecutor. In addition, the drug-addicted patients have never taken the replacement drugs in the doctor's office, although this is mandatory by law, the spokeswoman for the prosecutor continued. The general practitioner is said to have basically written so-called take-home recipes (replacement drugs for seven days) to the patient, but this is only permitted as an exception in particularly stable patients.

The drug addicts would also have been prescribed substitute drugs, if they demonstrably other drugs or benzodiazepines (psychotropic drugs) consumed. However, the combined intake could lead to significant damage to the health of patients, the statement of the public prosecutor Oldenburg. Occasionally, the physician even prescribes replacement drugs and benzodiazepines by prescription. So the doctor treated all patients without proper therapy and without adequate control. So far, the accused has made to all allegations of his right to silence and on the opening of the main proceedings was not decided by the district court Oldenburg.

Bonn doctor is deprived of the license
The Bonn doctor is also accused of illegal treatment of drug addicts. Whereupon he was deprived of the license and the license to practice by the licensing authority. By contrast, the Bonn physician now wants to move to the administrative court. Again, the allegation is that the doctor has given heroin-dependent patients illegal therapeutic substitutes such as methadone and polamidone. Since the physician himself sees no new reason why he should be deprived of his license to practice, the physician now wants to pull before the administrative court and complain, so his statement to the „Doctors newspaper“. Robin Faßbender, spokesman for the prosecution, said, however, that there are new indications for the ongoing illegal transfer of methadone and polamidone. Therefore, the prosecutor also initiated a new preliminary investigation against the doctor. The investigators have been targeting the methadone doctor for a long time and in the 335-page indictment of October of the year, 3,755 cases of unauthorized use of heroin substitutes are listed. So the physician is said to have treated 55 patients from March 2006 to February 2009 contrary to the provisions of the Narcotics Act and the Substitution Guidelines of the BÄK with the substitutes.

In the view of the public prosecutor, the treatment was illegal because the doctor did not properly administer the psychosocial care (PSB) required for treatment programs and prescribed take-home prescriptions as the general practitioner from the Wesermarsch prescribed. However, the doctor here represents a different position and refers to the medical discretion in the take-home prescriptions. In addition, the city refuses as a payers to reimburse him for the costs of the PSB, said the doctor on. In addition, it was not clear enough how the PSB treatment should look like. Since the doctor may not treat patients without a license to practice, his methadone patients will be cared for for the time being by the LVR clinic. (fp, 19.11.2010)

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